Inspiration
I have a dog at home who is always alone because the family is either at work or school. Sometimes the dog can cause trouble by chewing furniture. I wanted to create something that can watch over the dog.
What it does
As of right now, the robot is able to drive around and follow the pet by using the camera that is implemented into the robot.
How I built it
The body of the robot was made out of a simple weather-proof box in which I drilled holes through. From there, I used two gear motors that are connected to the raspberry pi to move. These motors spun the wheels so that it can move. I used raspberry pi 3 to control the robot. I programmed the robot using python and the opencv library to create the vision system so that the robot can 'see' the pet.
Challenges I ran into
The biggest challenge that I faced was getting openCV to work. It took me a few hours to figure out the problem and how to solve it. Another problem that I faced was getting the motors to work. The code for the motors worked but the motors did not spin. I assume that they fried and are inoperable.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
This is my first hackathon and the biggest project I have worked on. I am proud that I was able to get so much done is such a little time. It was great to see how the robot was able to grow
What I learned
I learned a lot more about vision systems and hope to continue
What's next for Pet Care Bot
I hope to complete the tasks that I was unable to finish. I also hope to continue with building the robot by implementing a feeder into it and even a speaker to communicate to the pet. At the end, I hope to put it out to the public so that everyone can have one.
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